In major upgrade, CNN iReport makes use of Facebook’s Open Graph technology

As citizen journalism grows in popularity, CNN iReport continues to assert itself as a go-to platform for people to contribute breaking news stories. Last November, we wrote about iReport’s goal in relaunching their site, “to become the largest social network for news.” With CNN’s innovative use of Facebook’s Open Graph technology, they are making great strides in achieving this goal.

Until now, iReporters have been able to connect their accounts so that whenever they uploaded a new iReport, it would automatically post to their Facebook walls. Now, iReport is going a step further by utilizing Facebook’s Open Graph technology. All posts will feature the full text of the story, a link back to the iReport, and all the accompanying images (and the stories) will be fed into a personal Facebook album automatically created for all iReporters.

Along with these upgrades to the iReport platforms comes more privacy control. Users that connect their iReport and Facebook accounts will be able to easily choose which stories post to Facebook, and will be prompted by checkboxes on the iReport page and a permission dialogue box on Facebook.